This is either a parody or a pastiche, I can't decide which. The difference is mockery vs homage.*
By linking to this piece we do not intend it as climate commentary but rather as an example of good writing, good in the sense that most all of the elements of scholarly papers are represented.
Also, I was reminded of it when thinking of the police chief in the Philippines who threatened to throw a vice-mayor into an erupting volcano if the chief's evacuation order was not enforced.
From Australia's Quadrant Magazine:
Climate modelling of new data from the Aztec Codex Cihuacoatl has identified a relationship with important implications for global warming mitigation. The research suggests a strong causal pathway exists between climate change and Aztec rituals of “nourishing the gods” with blood sacrifice.
The evidence supports a revival of (humane) human sacrifice (HHS) as a mechanism for retarding environmental degradation and reducing dangerous climate change. HHS also would improve crop yields by allowing more effective control of surface temperature and rainfall; create anthropogenic biochar for soil enhancement and long-term carbon enrichment, especially in tropical environments with low-carbon sequestration capacity and depleted ferrasol and acrisol zones; and reduce population growth rates as the Earth’s carrying capacity comes under further pressure this century.
Aztec culture has attracted scrutiny ever since Hernan Cortéz and his conquistadors entered King Montezuma’s palace in the lagoon city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) on November 8, 1519, triggering the destruction of an entire civilisation in only two years.
There has been, however, no investigation into whether Aztec sacrificial rituals might have influenced climate change in Middle America. Did they affect regional temperature and rainfall patterns? Did they improve crop yields in ways unknown to modern science?
Recent research by Mexico’s Institute Nacional de Antropologia e Historia and international climate experts is producing new data that could answer these controversial questions. But why has the subject been neglected for over half a century?
First, cultural sensitivities and entrenched superstition discouraged study of Aztec human sacrifice. Second, there was a lack of evidence. While pictorial codices and other accounts of Aztec society exist, it took the sensational rediscovery last year of missing sections of the Codex Cihuacoatl (circa 1520) to revive academic interest.
Third, climate research has been refining its knowledge over the past two decades. The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)—and its Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) model—only recently acquired the capacity to “simulate and project climate with unprecedented accuracy”[1]. With CLIVAR, reconstruction of past Middle American climates with greater precision has been possible. It has allowed complex time series simulation and use of eclectic proxies for temperature and other variables where empirical data is lacking.
The new Codex evidence is reviewed here with reference to Aztec cosmology, sacrificial rituals, sacred tonalamatl (divinatory) calendars, CLIVAR modelling and Mexico’s mammoth discoveries. Implications for global warming mitigation are discussed and recommendations made for the urgent attention of international agencies and governments.
Tenochtitlan
When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Valley of Mexico in 1519, they saw Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, rising out of an immense lagoon known as Metzliapan, or “lake of the moon”. (Mexico means “in the middle of the lake of the moon”.)
At its centre was the coatepantli, a cluster of monumental buildings dedicated to deities Aztecs believed controlled climate, weather and their fate. It was dominated by the teocalli, a thirty-metre-high flat-topped pyramid with two sanctuaries on top. One was for Tlaloc, god of rain and fertility; the other for Huitzilopochtli, god of the sun and strife.
Facing the Great Teocalli was the temple of Echecatl, god of winds. The adjacent courtyard was used for tlachtli, a ritual ball game where the ball symbolised the sun. On the right was the Tzompantli (“hairy skulls”), a huge rack displaying skulls of sacrificial victims. (Cortez’s companions counted 136,000 of them.)
Sacred Sacrifice
Aztecs believed their cultural continuity depended on sacrifice: “All life exists because of the gods. Their sacrifices gave us life and sustenance. We must repay them through sacrifice.” Central to their apocalyptic worldview was a sense of sacred obligation, possibly similar to our concern for the environment. The Aztec word for debt repayment, nextlahualli, was also a metaphor for human sacrifice. Without constant sacrifices the Aztecs believed the sun would become “angry”, temperatures would rise, corn yields decline and their world would be threatened with imminent destruction.
All life had an animating spirit or tonalli. Everything was tonacayotl, a manifestation of the gods. Everything came from them. Human blood hosted tonalli, hence there was an insatiable divine “hunger for the heart” of sacrificial victims.
According to Bernardino de Sahagun (1540–85), victims were taken to the top of a teocalli and laid on a stone slab. The abdomen was sliced open with a ceremonial flint knife. The still-beating heart was pulled out by priests. It was placed in a bowl held by a statue of the honoured god and the body was thrown down the temple stairs. The Aztecs sacrificed 80,400 prisoners in just four days during their 1487 re-consecration of Tenochtitlan’s Great Teocalli....
....Hold all Tickets. We had thought "The Day the Nasdaq Died" the pastiche* of the decade...
*..."Bohemian Rhapsody", by Queen is unusual as it is a pastiche in both senses of the word, as there are many distinct styles imitated in the song, all 'hodge-podged' together to create one piece of music....GOT THAT? WE HAVE A PASTICHE OF A DOUBLE PASTICHE!!!
(Wikipedia)
Genius.
